After Sylvia by Alan Cumyn Page B

looked around the room like he was daring anyone to vote against the calendars.
    The vote was called. No one put up a hand except Michael Baylor. Owen fingered the sample calendar nervously.
Beauties of the Ages
it said on the cover.
    Owen raised his hand.
    Soon others raised theirs, and then almost everyone was voting to sell the calendars.
    Each student took a hundred home in a box. Owen hid his in the bedroom closet and tried to work up the courage to ask his rather for help in selling them. But that evening he found Horace sitting in his favorite chair, his face hidden behind the newspaper. Owen could tell from the snapping sound of the turning pages that his father had had a bad day.
    So Owen waited until Friday when Horace was usually in a better mood. When Horace got home late in the afternoon he threw his tie on the chesterfield and ruffed up Sylvester’s fur in a happy way. Then when he was reading the paper he joked about an article about a chicken with two heads and no feet. “Sure would have trouble crossing the road!” he said. Then he looked at Owen.
    â€œHow was your day?” he asked. “You look like the prison bars are closing in all around.”
    Owen screwed up his courage.
    â€œI was wondering,” he said, “if you could drive me into Elgin.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œI have to sell calendars. It’s to go to Japan on the class trip,” Owen said.
    â€œI thought you lost that election,” Horace replied. His voice was suddenly sharp as wire, and Owen wished he hadn’t brought it up.
    â€œYes, but —”
    â€œShow me these calendars.”
    Owen brought the box down from the bed­room and opened it for his father.
    â€œTractor calendars!” he said with that special note of delight that Owen knew to dread. “You’d be lucky to sell two of these. You’ll just be wasting your time.”
    Owen went to Margaret to ask if she would drive him into Elgin. But Horace followed him into the kitchen.
    â€œYou’d do better if you sold the
tractors
door-to-door!” he said.
    â€œWhat’s all this about?” Margaret asked.
    â€œHis class thinks they’re going to Japan!” Horace said sharply.
    â€œDidn’t you plant some idea like that in Owen’s head?” Margaret asked.
    â€œBut he wasn’t even elected,” Horace said.
    It was strange for Owen to see his father whirling like this, saying something one day and then the opposite another.
    â€œThese are just young kids!” Horace said. “How do they think they’re ever going to get to Japan?” Horace looked at Margaret straight over Owen’s head. “Do you know what he wants? He wants me to drive him all the way to Elgin. After I’ve been working all day! Do you know I’ve been to Elgin twice already this week? People in Elgin don’t buy anything! I can tell you that for a fact. And these ridiculous calendars...”
    Owen retreated to the bedroom and closed the door. He felt like he was caught so tight under a giant s foot that he could hardly breathe.
    Before dinner his mother took him aside. “You know that your rather has to sell things every day,” Margaret said. “It’s a difficult life and some days don’t go right. He didn’t mean what he said.” Owen could hardly look up at her. “I called Lorne,” she said finally. “He’ll take you to Elgin.”
    Lorne arrived in the truck after dinner. Owen snuck out the back with his box of calendars so that Horace wouldn’t ask him where he was going.
    On the dark ride to Elgin, Owen tried not to think of what he would say if he happened, by chance, to knock on Sylvia’s door.
    He thought about explaining to Sylvia that he had written her a Christmas card but had forgotten the stamp. He still had the remnants of the card, without sparkles, in a drawer underneath his socks, and wondered now if he should have